


Why This Is So

by Estirose



Category: Monument Valley
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/Estirose
Summary: Ida has questions. The Crows, maybe, have answers.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nealyneal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nealyneal/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta reader, A!

Ida landed on the top of a dusty-pink Monument that she had never been on before. It was beautiful, but better, it gave her people plenty of places to roost. They were safe now, all of them. Because of what she did.

Landing gave her time to think. The question came back to her as it always did.  _ Who was she?  _ She was a Person, what the humans had called a Crow, but she also seemed to be  _ like  _ the humans. She knew there had been humans living in the lands where she'd walked, but they'd been gone so long that their homes had decayed. She'd remembered naught but that she needed to restore what had been lost.

But in doing so, she'd restored without knowing what she was. She still didn't understand it, but she could get by, just as she could get by with the humans. She'd sensed that she hadn't belonged with the humans, not really, not in all her travels. But she hadn't had her feathers, so how could she have known? Even when she'd seen herself, she hadn't understood. Even now, she didn't really understand it.

"Who am I?" she asked the air, knowing that someone would answer.

"You are Ida! Princess of the People!" The Person next to her answered. Person speech tended to be like that. Short and punctuated. "The daughter of the prince and the mage!"

She'd read a story like that when she'd traveled near the human ruins. There was a mage who had fallen in love with a prince. She'd found a way to shift between People and human, and the prince had captivated her, as she had him. They'd married and started a family together, and had somehow ended the world. Or their daughter had somehow ended the world. She'd never stuck around to read most of the story. There were always monuments to go to, Geometries to return. No time to read fairy tales that didn't seem to apply to her.

Except they had.

There were people to save, if possible, and redeem. She'd gone through and replaced the Geometries because she knew she had to do it, but not  _ why _ . The Geometries had whispered to her, guided her to the Monuments, urged her on, but never explained.

"What did I do?" She'd been a thief, according to the ghost. Or maybe they all had been, or she'd helped to steal the Geometries. It had been her people who had been cursed, made dark, made to forget just as she had.

The Person ruffled her feathers. She could tell the Person next to her was female, though not why. It was disconcerting to have gaps in her memory, know things without being able to turn them, to move them, to fit them together with other blocks of knowledge. “Helped us steal the Geometries! Humans didn't like it!"

She was part human, in a way, but it really didn't matter. 

Why did she have to steal the Geometries, and what had the Geometries done to her people? Or what had the humans done to the People when the Geometries were gone?

"Human gods made after our Gods! They made Geometries to make humans better than People! People were destroyed with the Geometries! Humans were responsible."

"Humans destroyed with the Geometries?" What were the things that she'd carried around in her hat? Had they harmed her? Had they been responsible for her forgetting everything?

"Yes, yes! Geometries could change world! Humans figured out, harmed People! We tried to stop them!"

They'd almost been destroyed? Ida could hear the despair in the Person's voice. What had caused this to happen? Hadn't her parents loved each other? It was what the fairy tales had always sounded like. A Person and a human could be in love.

But could she get the story from either side? The whole story?

"What happened to my parents?" That was a blank. Everything was a blank.

"Destroyed! Humans destroyed our mage, destroyed our prince too! That's when we took Geometries! Humans' gods made, made us dark!"

Dark and mournful, not light and lively. They had lived high in the mountains, away from humans for the most part. It was an aerie that they all headed towards, and maybe they'd find others of their kind, others that had not been at the monuments but had regained their true colors when the others had.

To Ida, in her forgetfulness, they had always been black. But now, it was right to see them in their pastel shades, to see them as they truly were.

"What are my People like?" she asked.

"Dreamers! We make dreams, beautiful dreams! The humans ignore our dreams, hunt us! Mage tried to save us, but it was too late! The humans hated her because she liked us. Had child with our prince."

She thought she remembered vaguely. Her mother, as human and People. Her father, always People. But if she concentrated, the image was gone.

"I... how fast did this happen?" How long had she been around? Everything had been falling apart, as if she'd been gone for a long time.

"Fast, but not fast!" The Person ruffled her feathers, as a way of indicating a long time. "Some of the People died! The age stopped! It was temporary! Humans stormed aerie, killed Mage! Killed prince!"

And she hadn't been with them, for some reason. Or so she presumed, since she was still alive. Or was she? Could she be a ghost too? But if she was a ghost, how had she touched the Geometries?

"Killed Ida?" she asked.

"No! Princess was still alive! Helped take the Geometries!"

"You helped." Or had the human gods punished all her People for what she'd done to save them? The ghost had mentioned that the People had been cursed to wander the monuments, forgetting who they really were.

The Person shook her head. "We tried. You too. You didn't want us going. Said our Gods would protect you. We disagreed. Came with you."

They'd been cursed, because of her. "But they didn't."

"No, the Gods tried, but could not. Human gods too powerful. Defeated the People's Gods."

Had there been stories about it? Ida couldn't remember. She was truly the Forgetful Princess.

"The humans were without Geometries. The Curse then happened." The Person cocked her head. "We forgot! We became dark!"

She'd forgotten, because of the Curse. They'd all forgotten. But did it matter now? The humans, her mother's kind, were gone. She didn't remember them. She didn't feel anything for them. Her father's kind were still there. Maybe they'd been cursed to live forever among the Monuments. Maybe that was why she was still there too. She had woken up with one idea, to travel to the Monuments and restore them. And she had. 

Her memory wasn't back, not like the others, but they were alive, and she was alive and the humans were not. Did anything else really matter?

Ida gazed at the landscape, gazed at the People. Preening her wings, she gazed up at the sky and got ready to fly again.

 


End file.
